Online marketers need to focus on “attention-getting” content

Online marketing professionals are certainly faced with a lot of challenges these days. Not only does a recession often force us to do more with less, but the growth of online users means we are fighting a tougher battle for consumers than ever before.

The number of people going online to find products, services, information and the like continues to grow strong. With each new person, a new product or service pops up to meet some demand. Since nobody waits for a company to fill a product or service void, the competition to be recognized or get noticed is getting more and more fierce.

To help emerge successful from this offensive by independent software developers and small to mid-sized companies, marketing professionals across the board are seeing a renewed emphasis on strategies around search engine optimization and search engine marketing. SEO and SEM are two relatively cost-effective approaches to expand brand recognition. When you add the use of email marketing, which, as I have written in a previous post, is still pound-for-pound, the most cost-effective method of reaching your customer base in the market today, you have a well rounded program to leverage what you already have.

But is that really good enough?

The truth of the matter is that online marketers need to build “attention-getting” content and value. All the other strategies are meaningless if you have nothing of value to draw-in the attention of your audience.

With that said, content that grabs your users attention is going to depend, first and foremost, on knowing your audience. What may interest a group of financial professionals concerned about the state of M&A during the recession is not going to be a prime target for moms searching online for an affordable family vacation. So, the first step is to survey your audience – even if informally – about what they like, and most importantly what they need. This will start you down the path to putting together content that will get their attention.

Another thing to consider is the medium you use to drive the content you create. You may have a dynamic report on the latest mobile user trends in Latin America, but how are you going to transmit that data? Are you going to push out a white paper? Post a video? Perhaps you are going to engage multiple media outlets in an all-encompassing press promotion? Perhaps it will be a combination of those three and more?

This is another area where a brief survey can help identify not just what your audience needs to know, but how they want to learn it.

In the end, content and method of distribution are a critical one-two-punch for online marketers.

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Spin a social media web for a soft landing

With all this talk of doom and gloom there is a bright spot in the US, and perhaps global economy. The social web.

By adapting existing marketing and public relations strategies to include social media, your company can stay in the forefront and on the minds of spend-weary consumers.

Here are four areas businesses need to look at to help improve their competitiveness and ensure a softer landing out of the recession:

  • Improve your website’s user interface. This may be a costly endeavor, but that depends entirely on your existing site and how many improvements you need. Never the less, cost should not impede redesign efforts if your website is not structured in the most user-friendly manner. How do you know if your site is user-friendly or not? Ask your customers. You cannot afford to drive consumers away and miss the few opportunities that remain, because of a horrid web site.
  • It’s a good time for SEO and SEM. We’ve all seen the numbers on where online advertising is going compared to other channels. Radio, print and television advertising dollars are going down, while online is going to stay relatively positive. The reason is simple: people are using the internet more to search for the things they want and need. What’s more, they are not just using their computer to search – they are using their phones as well, which makes search even more critical than ever before. By implementing some basic SEO techniques on your website, and running a few SEM campaigns, you can start to build on your brand and content.
  • Which brings us to #3 – content. Businesses need to start producing content. If every core marketing professionals job is to create demand around their company’s products or services, then there has to be some content that can be produced. Everyone from a technologist to a dry-cleaner has a story to tell. Now is the time to tell your story.
  • Lastly, we come to email marketing. If you do a good job segmenting your email and not overloading people with irrelevant messages, email marketing remains, pound for pound, the most cost-effective marketing tool you can utilize today. With a variety of email distribution tools out there (I use ConstantContact) at affordable rates for any size business, you should look at improving both the quantity and quality of your outbound marketing via email.

I realize this is just a start. I will look to add more ideas over the next few weeks. In the meantime, please feel free to comment or offer your own ideas. Tweet me via Twitter at: http://twitter.com/hackmer

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